Assignment Sample on Business Environments
Introduction
At present most of the business organisations have been focusing towards using appropriate technology in their business operations for overcoming the loss that they faced during pandemic. The business organisations have been adopting appropriate technological measures for enhancing their business productivity and earn more revenues and profits. The essay is based on discussing the role of technology in increasing productivity and establishing competitive advantage in the marketplace. The essay will also describe the use of technology in providing job opportunities to people at the time of pandemic.
Productivity in business
Productivity is defined as the ability of the business organisation to convert input into output in an effective and efficient manner. Enhanced productivity in business helps the firms to identify new business opportunities for increasing their business efficiency (Surya et al. 2021). The business firms can improve their productivity by increasing the levels of employee engagement and business operations. The companies can also adopt different strategies for enhancing their business productivity levels. The business firms can focus on implementing effective business plans that are continuously implemented for enhancing the business productivity and efficiency.
This can be done by getting an access to the competition that they have been facing while operating under the industry. The business firms can develop their business plans by adopting various tools like SWOT and PESTLE that can help in analysing the internal and external environment of the business. After analysing strengths and weaknesses of the business organisation, the business firms can improve their business processes for enhancing the productivity levels. The productivity in the business organisation gets measured by subtracting the input growth and output growth (Palvalin, 2017). The emergence of COVID-19 in the world has led to a decrease in productivity of the business firms.
This happened because governments of different countries imposed strict corona virus guidelines on the business firms and individuals. The industrial shutdown and transportation ban affected the business operations of many business firms belonging to the manufacturing industry, retail industry and many more. Due to industrial shutdown many people lost their jobs and this increased the levels of unemployment in the country. The labour productivity in the business organisations also got reduced to a great extent due to the emergence of COVID-19 in the world (Bairoliya and Imrohoroglu, 2020). This has also affected the business operations of many business firms that further resulted in loss of revenues and increase in debts.
Potential use of technology in enhancing productivity
There are different ways through which technology can help in increasing the productivity of the business organisation. Technology helps in enhancing the productivity of the business organisation by providing instant access to the business data and information to the employees of business firms (Bardhan et al. 2017). Technology can be best implemented within the business organisation by using various collaboration tools that helps in increasing the consistency of building effective customer relationships. This further helps in increasing the profitability and productivity of the business organisation. Technology promotes effective communication in the workplace that further helps in increasing productivity levels.
Increased use of technology within the business organisation has been contributing to the economic growth of the organisation and country by increasing productivity of capital and labour. As stated by Luftman et al. (2017), technology plays an essential role in organising all the business processes of the firm effectively and efficiently. The internet and mobile technology helps the business firms to share business information with their remote employees in an efficient manner. The “Unified communication systems” helps the business organisations to adopt various methods of communications like audio-video conferencing, instant messaging, phone calls and many more for interacting with the workforce.
Most of the business organisations have been using CRM systems in their businesses for managing relations with the customers by maintaining the security of their data and information systems (Girchenko et al. 2017). At the time of COVID-19 technology has helped the business organisations to continue their business operations safely at the time of industrial shutdown. On the contrary, the technology has been negatively impacting the business firm by reducing interpersonal relationships. The business information gets effectively saved on databases and users can get access to them with just one click. The business organisations can make appropriate use of technology for reaching the remote employees by regularly updating them regarding business processes through mobile devices.
The marketing processes of businesses are also getting influenced with the use of appropriate digital marketing, social media marketing and email marketing technology for building customer base. The business organisations can use virtualized operating system technology rather than old desktop computers for reducing extra business costs that are spent on the maintenance and controlling of computer systems. The business firms also need to focus upon hiring highly skilled and professional IT experts for implementing, managing and controlling advanced and innovative technology for enhancing the productivity of the business processes.
The business organisations have been moving towards using the technology of the internet for managing their business processes. The internet technology has helped the firm in enhancing their marketing and sales in a cost effective manner by reducing the costs of advertisement. At present there are about 4.66 Billion internet users in the world (Statista.com, 2021). These users can help the business organisations to earn more profits by marketing their products through online sources.
Establishment of competitive advantage
Appropriate use of technology within the business organisations has been helping the business firms to earn more profits and establish competitive advantage in the global marketplace. In the viewpoints of Gunasekaran et al. (2017), technology helps the business firms in establishing competitive advantage by providing innovative business measures. At present information technology has been putting a positive impact on bringing competitive advantage to the business organisations by improving the strategy of cost and product differentiation used in the firm.
On the contrary, technology affects the value activities of the business organisation and this further brings changes in the competitive scope of the business firm (Howell et al. 2018). This further reduces the costs of the business organisation. The business organisation implementing innovative and advanced technologies needs to consider various factors for gaining competitive advantage. The main factors that help in attaining competitive advantage are location, raw material, quality, service, efficiency and productivity. Competitive advantage helps the business organisations to distinguish themselves from their competitors operating under the same industrial sector in the market.
Technology is used by the business organisations for providing training to the employees and building their skill set for increasing their performance levels in the business (Armstrong and Landers, 2018). Innovative and advanced technology helps the business organisation to manufacture superior quality of products and services at low costs of investments. This helps in maintaining the financial budget of the organisation that can be further used for gaining competitive edge in the market. Technology helps in developing better learning opportunities for the workforce of the business organisation. The main advantage of the technology is that it helps in increasing the efficiency of every business task or process.
On the contrary, the technology in business can bring competitive disadvantage by increasing the cost of investment that is required for the implementation of new technology in business. For instance, “Microsoft” company is able to attain competitive advantage in the global marketplace by doing certain innovations in their technology and implementing it in their products and services (Mufti et al. 2021). The business firms have been adopting various trends in technology for getting competitive benefits in the market. Use of technology in production of goods have increased up to 3% and service production has increased up to 2.5% in 2017 (Statista.com, 2021). The other industrial sectors have also benefited from the technology by improving their employment, customer care services and marketing processes.
Contribution of technology during pandemic
Technology has played a crucial role in various business organisations during the industrial lockdown at the time of pandemic. During the pandemic most of the retail business organisations shifted their business to online sources for maintaining social distancing among the people (Kumar et al. 2020). The business organisations already having their online business application improved their application and online delivery and customer care services for earning profits during COVID-19. On the contrary, the manufacturing and construction industrial sector have not been able to make appropriate use of technology because all their business operations are dependent upon the availability of raw materials, labour and machineries.
The technology like chat bots are used by various business firms for providing customer care services to the customers. The “Chabot” artificial intelligence technology works by solving the queries of customers that are asked frequently (Okuda and Shoda, 2018). This has helped the business organisations in saving their costs that are invested upon recruiting and selecting customer care executives for solving the issues of the customers. The healthcare system of the world has also made an appropriate use of technology by providing superior quality of health advice, care and medical checkups to the people through the technology of the internet only.
Individuals have become more concerned towards purchasing through online rather than visiting traditional stores. About 58% of customers’ interactions have become digital during COVID-19 crisis. In North America digital interactions have increased to about 65% and in Asia-Pacific region it rose to about 53% (Mckinsey.com, 2021). The unemployment levels also increased during the pandemic and due to this reason the business organisations have made appropriate use of technologies and created huge job opportunities for the people. The technology of big data and Artificial intelligence has been widely used by the business organizations for coping with the issues caused due to COVID-19 emergence.
Business organisations have created many new job opportunities for the people during the post lockdown all around the job. The IT sector has expanded to great extent during the industrial shutdown and at present it has been creating great opportunities for the individuals to work from remote sources (Prasad et al. 2020). During lockdown it has been seen the craze for online shopping has increased among the people and this has promoted the jobs of delivery drivers and warehouse employees. The individuals have also got job opportunities in the grocery stores during pandemic because only these stores were open at the time of pandemic. During the pandemic about 2.7 million self employed people have applied for getting income support after losing their jobs (Bbc.com, 2021). The demand of domestic cleaners have also increased during the post pandemic period because businesses have become more concerned towards sanitised and hygiene workplace for the employees.
The technology has played a crucial role at the time of pandemic by informing the people about their health status. Technology also helps in offering them the opportunity to purchase their products and services by sitting at their place only. The business of digital payment companies have flourished during the pandemic by promoting cashless transactions for reducing the spread of corona virus. On the contrary, the food, tourism and hospitality industry got negatively impacted due to the emergence of COVID-19. At present these industrial sectors are recovering by making appropriate use of technologies.
Conclusion
At last it can be concluded that technology in business puts positive and negative impact on the business operations of the organisation. Moreover technology has contributed in increasing the business profits of companies operating under the IT sector during pandemic by promoting digital technology all over the world. Many companies have relied upon the technology during COVID-19 cruises for earning more business revenues. The use of technology during a pandemic has safeguarded the jobs of many people. Technology can potentially increase productivity in various ways. Technology helps in enhancing the productivity of business organisations by connecting diverse workforce working through remote sources.
Reference List
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